PEBEO AND CLAY, DOING IT MY WAY

Every year I try to make a few things to donate to the Oklahoma Clay Guild.  They do a lot of good work for the high school girls in Oklahoma.  This year I tried to do a few different things.

This is suppose to be Steampunk.  The heart is clay and the center is Pebeo and Magic Glos.

This is also polymer clay with Pebeo and Magic Glos.

The top heart was done with a Randee Ketzel tutorial,  The bottom key chain is a swirly lentil bead that's been sanded and buffed.

This is also done with the Randee Ketzel tutorial.  It's one of my favorite.

Now I need to clean off my work table and start making some canes and get more stuff in my Etsy store.

Thanks for stopping by.

HERE'S MY HEARTS

Last Saturday a woman from Beads of Courage visited our Arizona Polymer Clay Guild meeting.  The Beads of Courage program is our charity that we support. Beads of Courage Needs You click here to find out more about the program.  Every child who goes through a procedure like chemo, or giving blood or surgery gets a necklace and they get a bead for every procedure.  Most large city hospitals have this program so you should check with your local hospitals to see if they need donations.  If not, contact the Beads of Courage on the web site.

The picture on the top is of polymer clay heart pendants that I made to donate.  They aren't exactly beads but the heart pendants are going to be given to some of the mother's and to the nurses who are involved in the program.

 The second picture of heart pendants were also made with polymer clay but then I covered them with Pebeo paint and Magic Glos.

This was another heart that I made and gave to my friend for her birthday.

I have been looking all over for the new Premo clay.  The only place I found them was at Sunny Day Crafts http://www.sunnydaycrafts.com/ and I get most of my clay from them because of the price, and I usually get my shipments in 2 to 3 days so I know it hasn't been sitting on a hot truck in Arizona for 4 days before I get it.  Their shipping prices are reasonable and they really package it well.  Unfortunately, they are out of the new clay colors right now but keep checking with them or ask them to send you an email when they come in.

The outer edge of the pendant on the left is made entirely of Premo White Glitter Clay.  This was an experiment that I did.  When you add glitter to clay and try to cut it, the blade usually drags and you are taking a chance of scratching your pasta machine depending on what type of glitter you use.  This clay does not drag, it works easy in the hands and the results to me were great.  The other thing I did by accident was mix some with another Premo color and I was left with beautiful purple glitter clay so I can make my own colors and add this clay to it.  In the top picture there is a black swirl heart.  That has a little of the new Premo Opal, white glitter and yellow glitter in it.  The opal clay does have pieces in it so you need to be careful how you cut it and use it.

I love this clay.  I sanded and buffed both of these pendants and the colors didn't change in the glitter clay.  The pendant on the right has Premo Yellow Glitter Clay in it.  I also bought Premo Rose Glitter which is so pretty in the package I can't wait to use it.  It looks to me like the base of the clay is translucent with a special glitter that is dense and sands and buffs really well.

If you find out some where else where the new Premo clay is being sold let me know.

PLEASE FINISH ME!

The other day I opened a box that was on the shelf in my studio.  It scared me half to death.  All the little pendants on the inside started yelling "FINISH ME, FINISH ME".  So I took them out and took out my beading board and put them on one at a time and told them I would do the best I could to finish them.  After two hours I had every bead I owned, every crimp, crimp cover, chain, toggle and 4,000 feet of wire on my table.  Does this happen to just me?  I still have 3 boxes full of pendants and pieces that need finishing, my office looks like an explosion and I can't find the top of my work table but I did manage to finish some things.

Love this heart made from the Randee Ketzel tutorial.

This is Mr. October.

Husband approved this one.

I love this one.  Another one from the Randee Ketzel tutorial.

Purple and turquoise, my favorite color combination.

I hear more pendants calling me.  

Maybe it's just the voices in my head or it could be a sinus infection.  Now, if I can find the top of my work table it will be a wonderful day.

LEARNING, LEARNING, LEARNING

In the post before last I told you I bought the Lynda Moseley tutorial "Masterful Faux Made Easy".
https://www.etsy.com/shop/DivaDesignsInc  you can buy it in her Etsy shop and it's wonderful.  I've done 3 batches now and it's been a learning experience for me.  All polymer clay artists put their own twist on things and I'm no different. 

As you can see, there aren't two alike but they are all beautiful, at least I think so.  They are not as pretty as Lynda's and if you go to the picture on the cover of her tutorial you will see the things she made using this tutorial.  I don't like to sand so I took some short cuts and it's obvious.  Lynda made me promise to do it again and do it right.  She sands with 8 different grits, 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500 and 3000.  I skipped a few so I have to go back and redo.

This was my first go at it but I decided to rip the clay and put it together (my twist).  These need re-sanding too.  Now I have 12 more pieces that I made out of these batches so I have a lot of sanding to do.  I would be happy to pay someone to do it for me.

This tutorial is so much fun and I know if I follow directions I will soon be able to make beautiful stuff like Lynda's.  I guess I kind of hurried though since I had to golf, bowl, walk the dogs, wash the sheets, iron the clothes, mop the floors, dust the furniture, change the cat liter.  I think it's time to let all that stuff go and just do clay.

By the way, Lynda has the one on the top right in the above picture and my friend Evelyn took the two round ones to make pendants for her and her sister, she loved them.  The picture doesn't really do them justice.  Some day I'm going to figure out how to take good pictures too, as soon as I clean the bathroom and empty the garbage and walk the dogs again.  So now I only have to re-sand one piece.

Have fun with this and Lynda is so wonderful and helpful.  It's 47 pages of awesome pictures and instructions.  Guess you can tell I'm a Lynda fan.  She's stuck in 11 degree weather right now and it's 80 here so I'm trying to be nice to her.  LOL

MORE CAMP STUFF

This is the puff bead I made in the demo.  It was a cane done with silver pink and peacock pearl Premo clay.   I sanded and buffed it but I might do it again.  I made the cane because everyone at camp made a cane and we gave them to Amy who is our most fantastic clay person.  She took all the canes and put them together in a huge Kaleidoscope cane and gave each one of us a piece.

This was the final cane.  Lots of colors and combos.  

I had a lot of strange pieces of clay laying on my desk so I decided to make a flower cane.  I found one in Yonat Dasclu's book that I really liked.  As you can see, I turned the first piece the wrong way that's why I have two different petal colors but I kind of like it.  I am also having trouble cutting it without getting lines from my blade on it.  I've tried 3 different blades so far and still get those lines.  I'm going to take out a new blade and see what happens.

This is a swirly lentil bead that I made from the cane.  Needs more sanding and buffing.

This is a closeup of the braided cane I made on the side that I cut with a wavy blade.  It was three Skinner blends and they were all different colors.

This is the other side of the cane.  One of the Skinner blends was done with Alizarin Crimson and ecru and I put a snake of silver in the middle before I rolled it up.  You can cut these from any side and get something completely different every time you cut it.

This is one of those stretch bracelets that a bunch of us did.  This is Tisha's.  She is really talented.  I think she made 5 more before the weekend was over.

One of the other wonderful things we did was a pendant challenge.  I thought I had a picture of the winner but I'll have to get it from Lupe.  She made a beautiful cross with Mokume Gane and she won.  We all made pendants and they were suppose to be inspirational.  They are going to be donated to a battered women's shelter.  They were all beautiful but Lupe's was especially gorgeous.

SPEAKING OF LUPE

Most of you know Lupe Meter.  She is one of the most talented woman I've ever met.  Not only that, she's really sweet.  I guess you can tell I belong to the Lupe Meter fan club.

Lupe was in charge of the goody bags for camp.  She has been working on them for 6 months and I must say they were incredible.  I should have taken everything out and took a picture of it but no, I had to take everything out and play with it and then find a place for it.  I digress, every bag had a name tag on it.  Not your ordinary every day run of the mill name tag.

This is what Lupe made for everyone.  26 of these.  We were all standing there amazed when we saw these.  I know you are all jealous and you should be. LOL  Thank you Lupe for the beautiful name tag and the wonderful job you did on the goody bags.  I'm so glad you won the inspirational challenge because you are an inspiration to me.

POLYMER CLAY AND KUMIHIMO

I need to dust and vacuum and wash floors and clean my office and iron.  It's raining here in Arizona so I think that's a sign that says I should do polymer clay or Kumihimo and let all that other stuff wait till it stops raining.  LOL

A friend of mine from home has a niece who has a severe brain problem and had to have surgery.  They are going to have a benefit for her to raise money to help with the expenses.  I made some Kumihimo bracelets and some polymer items for them to use in the raffle.  The blue and white pendant was a polymer cabochon that I beaded around and did a Kumihimo necklace.

I sent 5 of the red, white and blue bracelets, my friends are very patriotic.

My girl friends birthday was yesterday.  She is the mom of the three dogs that I walk every day.  I made her a purse table holder and made a box with Champ's picture on the top.  I want to steal him but Buster doesn't care too much for him.

I just finished this and put it in my Etsy shop.  The polymer pendant is made from the braided cane I did a few weeks ago.  It's a purse bling/key chain.  The Kumihimo beaded part was done with Megatamas, drops and seed beads.

I think I better iron or my sweetie will run out of shirts.

POLYMER CLAY PENDANTS

Not enough hours in the day especially when you have to take a nap.  AND, I do.  I get up every day at 5 and go take my friend's 3 dogs for a walk and then I get in her pool to cool off.  It's so hot here in Arizona right now the dragon flies are diving bombing the pool.  Anyway, I have been really busy making pendants.

These are all made with polymer clay in bezels and then covered in resin.

I really like the white ones.  These are also polymer covered with resin.  The two on the right are from a cane I made a couple of weeks ago.

The second heart is a Natasha cane made from the left over Mokune Gane I did for the shower pens.  I like the third one in the brass bezels with the blue Swarovski crystals.

The cross in the middle is not polymer.  I poured alcohol ink in the cross to see what would happen and when it dried it was beautiful.  I laid the jump rings and the crystals in and put the resin in.  Most of these have 2 or 3 coats of resin.  The one on the right was sanded and buffed, no resin.

These two have both been sanded and buffed.  I love doing Natasha pieces with left over clay.

AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST

BUSTER

One minute he's the sweet Buster.

The next minute he's the "ALIEN IN THE BRAINS BUSTER".

Going to the show where it's cool and I can have popcorn for lunch.  LOL

MY NEW FAVORITE MOLD BY PENNI JO COUCH

When I saw the turtle on Penni Jo Couch's blog, I got really excited.  I know, it's not a cat but she's working on that for me.  LOL  Normally I share my molds when I'm teaching a class or playing but this turtle mold shall never touch the hands of anyone but me.  Anyway, I was surprised this morning when I saw my turtles on Penni Jo's blog http://claylady43.blogspot.com/ that was really nice of her.

Yesterday at our beading club one of the other ladies taught the braided rope technique from Desiree McCrorey's blog http://desiredcreations.com/ howTo_CABraidRainbowCane.htm.  We all did different colors and had a lot of fun.  This was my block when it was done and cut into.

I made a pendant with this but it needs sanding and buffing and then I'll post it.  I love these colors.  I wrapped my Skinner blends in black before I braided them and I think that's why the definition in the colors is so vibrant.  

This was Evelyn's.  She also covered her's in black.  Her colors are really southwest.  Love the turquoise and the amber and brown.

This was Debbie's braid after she started twisting it.

WEDDING PENS

I'm making pens for a wedding shower and the brides colors are gold and navy.  I don't know if she went to Notre Dame or not.  I used Premo and did a Mokume Gane with navy, 18 kt gold, Jecru (Julie Picarello recipe of ecru, translucent and pearl)  I also made a sandwich with translucent with gold leafing in between.  I covered the pens and made small hearts to attach to them with the wedding date stamped on the back.  I have to put them together.  This heart is bigger than the rest because this is going to be the brides pen.

  I had some end pieces of the Mokume Gane so I did some pendants that I'm going to sand and buff again and made something for the door prizes.

I'll post pictures of the finished pieces when and if I get them done.  WHEW

A REALLY FUN CLAY DAY

Yesterday at our beading club we had a clay day.  We have 140 members in our club and about 20 of us do clay.   Some of the ladies are new to clay and it amazes me the beautiful things they are making.  I like to show them different techniques when we get together like Mokume Gane, using the extruder, Natasha beads, etc.  They love making canes and I like putting my own twist on things I see in magazines and books. Yesterday we made a cane and wouldn't you know I screwed mine up when I was almost done so it was good for them to see what happens when you make a mistake.  They all put their own twist on everything especially the colors.  It always amazes me what we end up with.  I have a couple pieces in the oven from my screw up that I'll post tomorrow or Saturday but here are some things I made Tuesday night to show them and here are the ones they made.

These are the pendants I made and took some end pieces and made bobby pins with Swarovski crystals in them.

These are some of the canes the ladies made.  They all love bright colors, it will be interesting to see the things they make with these.  We did use Penni Jo's molds with this and made some great looking pendants.

Can't wait to see all the beautiful things they make with these pieces.  I turned my Skinner Blend the wrong way so I don't have pretty pieces like these.